Apple unveiled a variety of new products and features at its media event yesterday. While a veritable rainbow of iPod Touch options, or re-engineered headphones might be exciting news for some, they’re irrelevant to businesses or business users.

Fear not, though. Apple also revealed some good news for business users. There are aspects of the new iPhone 5, and features in the new iOS 6 that will make iOS devices more useful and effective as mobile productivity tools.

If you already use iOS devices for business, or you’re considering deploying iOS mobile devices or implementing a BYOD policy that allows users to bring their own devices to work, here are seven benefits of the new iPhone and iOS that you should be aware of:

There are a number of features of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 that benefit business users.1. Better, faster connectivity

The iPhone 4S remains the only flagship smartphone of any of the major platforms that lacks 4G. Apple introduced 4G/LTE cellular with the new iPad back in the spring, and now the iPhone 5 is also getting bumped up to LTE.

This may not be Earth-shattering news for AT&T iPhone users. The HSPA+ cellular that iOS detects as 4G delivers reasonably fast data speeds. However, I have a Verizon 3G iPhone 4S and a Verizon 4G/LTE iPad sitting in front of me. They both have the same three bars of signal, but the SpeedTest.net app reports a download speed of only 0.83Mbps on the Verizon 3G compared to 11.04Mbps on the Verizon LTE. That means that my Verizon LTE is more than 13 times faster than the 3G—and that’s just sitting in my home office. I’ve gotten speeds approaching 30Mbps on the iPad while out and about.

It’s more than just the 4G cellular, though. The new iPhone also has vastly improved Wi-Fi technology. The iPhone 5 has dual-band 802.11n which means it can take advantage of both 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless networks. Apple claims the iPhone 5 can deliver a theoretical top speed of 150Mbps over Wi-Fi.

Businesses that want to employ iPads without exposing their data or networks to undue risk can basically turn the device into a one-trick pony that only runs the app designated by IT. A business could deploy iPads as mobile sales or cash register tools, dedicated kiosk consoles, or other unique purposes where it makes sense to prevent users from downloading and playing Angry Birds. IT can also assign an image—like a company or product logo—as the background of the iPad, and lock it to prevent anyone from changing it.

3. New maps and navigation

Road warriors might appreciate the new mapping and navigation features of iOS 6. The current iOS has a Maps app already, but it doesn’t provide voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation. There are other apps available that do that—like Garmin StreetPilot—but there’s no way to designate a third-party app as the default mapping or navigation app, and there’s no way to integrate a third-party maps app with Siri.

On top of having cool 3D maps and a cool fly-by feature, the new Maps app will allow users to simply ask Siri to find the nearest gas station or coffee shop. Rather than pulling up navigation directions on a map that you have to actually look at and manually step through each direction, Siri will guide you there, turn-by-turn.

When Apple initially introduced iOS 6 and developers started working with the early beta release the mapping feature got mixed reviews. However, the demonstration Apple showed at the iPhone 5 unveiling seemed much more polished and impressive. We’ll have to see how the new Apple maps compare in the real world when iOS 6 comes out next week.